


silent and starving (i prowl through the streets)

by somethingdifferent



Category: Stoker (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, F/M, Hades/Persephone - Freeform, Modern Retelling, Uncle/Niece Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:59:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this version, no one draws the short straw.</p>
<p>[charlie/india; modern mythology]</p>
            </blockquote>





	silent and starving (i prowl through the streets)

 

_I hunger for your sleek laugh,_  
_your hands the color of a savage harvest,_  
_hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,_  
_I want to eat your skin like a whole almond._

PABLO NERUDA

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

 

In this version, no one draws the short straw. Charlie gladly rules the domain of hell. He does it with a smile on his cold and perfect face.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

 

On earth, a girl is born to his brother's wife. Evelyn cradles the baby in her arms, wonders how her daughter got such black and lifeless hair. Hers is red, red and vibrant. When she moves through her house, flowers fall from the hem of her dress. Grass grows in between the knots of the wood paneling. India can only roll dumbly around in her crib, screaming bloody murder.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

"I want to see my niece," Charlie tells his brother. Richard shifts uncomfortably in his chair (his throne). From the top of this mountain, he can see his wife's little cabin in the meadow, the roses springing from the thatched roof, the violets growing wild along the stony path to the door.

"Not yet," Richard warns his little brother. "She's only a child."

Charlie nods, acquiescing. He drives his car back to the underground with the top down and grins when one of the wheels catches a bird in the neck.

He buys a grand piano and learns to play; India has just begun her lessons.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

Evelyn tries to teach her daughter how to garden, but India only excels at digging holes.

"You've overturned all of my petunias again!" she shrieks. "What am I going to do with you, India?"

Her daughter doesn't respond. Slowly, carefully, she digs the heel of her shoe into the last upright flower. When Evelyn grabs her by the ear and drags to her room, India doesn't even scream.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

"I'd like to see my niece." At the bottom of the staircase, Charlie smiles a blank and flawless smile.

Richard stands at his chair (his throne). He very carefully does not reach for the photograph of his daughter in his pocket. "Charlie," he says.

His brother begins to ascend the stair. "I want to see my niece."

"There are plenty of women. There are women in the underground."

Charlie reaches the top of the stairs. From here, they are on the same level, though Charlie is a little taller. "I want to see India."

"Not my India!" Richard shouts, and even he is surprised. Then, softer: "Not my family."

Charlie claps a hand on his brother's shoulder, his expression understanding. "Of course," he agrees. This is when he pushes Richard down the stairs.

When he reaches the floor once again, Charlie pauses by his brother's body, to watch the ichor flow from his snapped neck. All white and gold and pretty. He bends, taking the photograph and, on a whim, the sunglasses from around his ears.

He walks out of the house (the palace) and doesn't look back when he hears the first scream.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

India walks the path through her mother's forest. Just ahead, Evelyn Stoker trails her fingers along the trees, every so often squealing in delight as all manner of flora bloom in her wake.

"Dear," she calls back breathlessly. "Come try it again."

India drags her feet, hardly caring when the dirt begins to stain the white leather of her shoes. She knows she will get another pair tomorrow, on her eighteenth birthday.

Her mother draws her close. "Put your hands like this. No, here. There. Now, India, darling, I want you to really concentrate. Are you listening? India, you are impossible sometimes. Here, just - yes, like that. Now, _breathe_ life into it. Really try."

When nothing begins to grow, Evelyn sighs, folding her arms across her chest. "Oh, honey," she titters. "We'll try again later." India smiles, following her mother further into the forest. She does not notice when one of the flowers withers at her heel.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

Richard wakes up in a white room (in a hospital). He groans, leaning back onto the pillow and rubbing his palm against his eye. When he puts his hand to his chest, he can't feel the photograph in his shirt pocket. When he calls his wife, she doesn't answer the phone.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

There is a hole in the garden that India did not dig. It is much wider than usual, which is how she noticed the difference. She approaches slowly, realizing as she nears that it is deeper as well.

At the bottom of the chasm, in the center of the circle, a perfect white flower blooms. India doesn't know the name, doesn't even know the genus. She clambers down into the fissure, her black and white shoes sticking and slipping against the mud, the hem of her pretty dress staining. She reaches for the blossom, her nails scraping against the earth as she twists and plucks it from the ground.

"India."

She looks up, squinting, to see a shadow watching her from above the hole. She can't see his eyes behind the sunglasses.

"It's your Uncle Charlie," he explains, beginning to walk the steep path to her. Not once on the way does he falter.

She frowns, furrowing her brow. "I didn't know I had an Uncle Charlie."

"And an Uncle Jonathan."

"Where is he?"

Uncle Charlie shrugs. "The ocean."

She twists her mouth in consideration. "Why should I believe you?"

He tilts his head, seeming to think very hard about the question. He reaches his hand out, pulling the flower easily from her grasp, and raises his eyebrows, signaling for her to watch. In his fingers, the flower begins to wilt.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

Upstairs, in the beautiful little cabin in the meadow under Olympus, Evelyn Stoker brushes her long, red hair. The phone rings uselessly in her very expensive dresser.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

India doesn't want to ride in his car on the way to the underground. Charlie insists, though, and by the time they reach the heavy iron gates, her hair is windswept and her eyes are dark with irritation. Her uncle only laughs, though, and promises to buy her new transportation of her choosing.

His dog growls at her and bares its sharp teeth. India smiles, and pets all three of its heads.

Charlie gives her a tour and her very own garden to kill. He gives her perfect new shoes for her birthday and helps her stand to walk in them. She eats the dinner he prepares (though he does not eat with her) and the dessert he gives. She swallows the pomegranate seeds greedily, six of them, the juice trickling down her chin.

Their marriage is sealed in blood and ichor and not a single kiss.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

Evelyn Stoker takes her husband's car to the underground. In a white room (in a hospital), he cannot lift his head, cannot move his legs, but for the IV drip in his golden veins.

"Give me back my daughter, you bloodless thing."

Charlie uncrosses his legs, his shoes clicking against the floor. India hasn't seen any leather like the kind he wears.

"She is my wife," he replies, holding out a half-devoured pomegranate. "She is of age."

"India," Evelyn wails, "darling, come home to me. Please."

"She is not yours to take," Charlie says, baring his perfect white teeth.

"It is only half a marriage, she is only half yours to claim." Evelyn turns to her daughter, beseeching. "India?"

India holds up her hand and twists; in her mother's hair, the flowers begin to die.

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

In the end, Richard stands up at his bed and divides his daughter in half.

In spring, she follows her mother from place to place dolefully, wears the leather gloves her husband bought for her lest she kill the flowers that all really look like weeds. The earth does not wither and die, no matter how often she wishes it would, and Charlie (her husband, her uncle, her captor) reaps men and women and animals with his two hands while she watches from her mother's thriving garden.

In winter, she rides her motorbike back to hell. Charlie, with his pale and wide eyes, takes her ungloved hand and leads her to the battle. Together they gather Greek and Trojan bodies and wring their pretty little necks. In the quiet of her dead garden underground, India and Charlie play a grand piano. Her heels, which click so nicely on the pedals, are made from crocodile skin.

 

 

 

 


End file.
